


Calculated Risk

by cerebrobullet



Series: Calculation [1]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Gen, Yoglabs, the beginning of the mystery of the multiple lalnas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 21:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2444477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerebrobullet/pseuds/cerebrobullet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lalna has informed Xephos of his intentions to leave yoglabs, and Xephos has an unexpected response.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calculated Risk

The world was cold and silent, a blurred vision he could not understand. Breath escaped his lips in white cloud, pressing against the glass and metal door before him, laying fog over the ice crusted window. There should not be a door there, he thought. There were walls around him which should not be there. There should not be darkness.

This, Lalna came to quickly realize, was not his bed.

His hands immediately began to beat on the door, fingernails chipping away at the ice that covered everything, leaving dim claw marks in their wake. He screamed, but the scream never felt loud enough, like he was caught in a nightmare, rendered mute.

“For the love of God, someone has to be out there!” he screamed. The words faded away into heavy breaths, his fingers curled and pressed against the glass. “Hello? Please? Plea-”

A creak broke through silence, the familiar sound of iron doors swinging open. Lalna leaned into the window as much as he could, squishing his face against it to get the best possible view of the outside world. The shape was blurred by regrowing ice crystals, but it was a person, a person walking his way. His beating on the door began again, fists pounding out patterns on the ice, but it was an unneeded effort. The person was there to see him, and, as they walked up to the prison, he could finally see them clearly.

“Xephos? Xephos! Oh thank god, thank god you can open this thing, I don't even know what happened, I was just, ah... Xe..phos?” Lalna’s frantic words slowed as he spoke, picking up on his friend's unchanged face. A furrowed brow, eyes that looked straight into his own, and a jaw set tight, lightly grinding against itself. It did not take the scientist long to piece together the puzzle.

“You're not here to get me out,” he said. Silence began to stretch. He swallowed hard. “... You put me in here, didn't you?”

Xephos's eyes shifted away, tracing the claw marks still shadowed on the glass. “Look, Lalna, I’m sorry it’s-”

“Bullshit, you're sorry.” Lalna recoiled from the door, twisting his mouth into a sneer as he spoke. He could feel emotion twisting in his throat, tracing down to sit heavy in his heart, a disgust which he'd been feeling grow stronger and stronger over the last few months. He felt his limbs begin to shake, hands gripping tightly onto his lab coat to keep them steady. “Sorry? You're not sorry. You never are, are you?”

Blue eyes narrowed, the spaceman leaning in close to the window. “Oh stop acting up, if you'll be quiet and let me explain for a moment, you'll learn there's nothing for you to fear.”

“You’ve locked me in a- in a- ... I don’t even know what or where this is! But it’s cold, and you’ve locked me in here and you must have knocked me out! And you’re saying I have nothing to fear? Where the hell am I, even?”

Xephos traced his tongue along his lips for a moment before taking in a light breath, his body leaning back from the container. “You’re in the clone lab, Lalna.”

The scientist’s clenched hands released his lab coat, his shoulders dropping, eyes widening. His hands reached out to touch the so close walls of his prison, steadying their tremble by pressing against the metal. The clone lab? The clone lab couldn’t exist, it was just a concept. It was his concept.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Xephos snapped, “It’s your own fault this is happening, if you would just bloody listen to reason for once, I wouldn’t have to be doing this.”

“The..cl.. what?” His voice cracked on the last word, and Lalna tried to calm himself down, tried to take deep breaths and not think about how much air might be in his tiny prison. He held up a hand to the window, asking for a moment to think. It felt like the darkness inside was steadily pressing closer to him, narrowing down his vision to just the window, just Xephos’s angry face staring back at him, and that was all the world was. Darkness and anger, and white walls as far as he could see. His heart was beating faster than he could think, his eyes pressing closed for a moment, trying to block out all the fractured pieces of reality to let him think. When he opened them again, he drew in another long breath, talking slowly as if to a child. “Xephos, I haven’t finished the clone lab experiment yet.”

“No, you haven’t.” Xephos replied. “But I did.”

“... you what?”

The spaceman rolled his eyes, and walked off to the side of the container, Lalna pressing against the glass to watch him.

“You didn’t really do a good job hiding your growing distaste for Yoglabs before informing me you were leaving. I decided I’d just... ensure the work was completed, in case you left before you finished it, or tried to sabotage it.” He flicked a switch on the control panel, leaving his hand to linger on it as he stared at the now blinking light. “Obviously a wise decision.”

“So what am I, your first test subject?”

“No no no, I’ve tested it already, of course. It works very well. Usually.”

“Usually.” Lalna emphasized the world with distaste, shaking his head. “There’s no way you could have finished this without me. Where did you even get the research for it? All my work-”

“Is property of Yoglabs,” Xephos cut in, keeping his eyes down. “And therefore, free to be given and reassigned to whoever I deem appropriate.”

“Am I property of Yoglabs, too, then?”

Xephos remained quiet at the question. He brushed a finger over the console’s screen, half lidded eyes watching the read out of information scroll along. Lalna could feel his breath quicken as he watched him. The cold faded away to the sensation of burning within him, fire racing along his neck, clenching his jaw.

“And of course you have no idea why I want to leave still.”

Xephos went taut at the words, snapping his gaze to the face pressed against the glass. “No, Lalna, no I really don’t. Haven’t I given you everything you ever wanted here? More resources than you could ever use, scientific aids of amazing skill, facilities better than anywhere else in Minecraftia. And you now want to throw that all away, for what? Why? Because our methods get a little bit questionable? That never seemed to be a problem for you before now. If I remember correctly, you’re the one who suggested using testificates in tests in the first place!” As he ranted he stalked around the container, shoulders hunched over, hands clamped tightly into white knuckled fists. The anger coursed through his every muscle, days and months of frustration released in a vocal torrent. “So what changed, Lalna?” He yelled the words, leaning his body forward with them. A deep exhale punctuated the sentence, and he drew closer to the glass. The anger that curled his lips and furrowed his brow began to wane, mouth pulling into a grimace. “What changed, friend?”

The captive echoed his motions and leaned forward to the glass, breaths visible as puffs of steam on the window. Lalna’s body was held taught, hands pressing against the walls still, shoulders and back stiff. But the wide eyes were now narrowed, a thin line of moisture on the edge of the lids. He spoke, softly. “You did.”

The words were greeted with a blank stare. Pain and anger evaporated from Xephos’s face, replaced by dead eyes and a taut mouth. “... This will only take a moment, Lalna. And then you can leave.” He turned fully away from his friend, and began to walk towards the control room.

“You don’t let people leave the labs with company secrets,” the scientist spoke quietly, faltering the spaceman’s steps and causing him to pause, turning around to glare. There was a bend to Lalna’s body now, taut muscles giving in to the weight of the situation, bending down and curving under the fear layering steadily upon him. He’d meant to say it as a statement, but now it felt almost like a plea. What would he do, to escape that fate, he wondered. Would he repent of his acts, his convictions, to save himself? Oh of all the times to grow a conscious, he had to pick the time when his friend was most likely to kill him. The bubbling fear drove a stake through any rational thought he tried to form. He dug his nails into the walls, and spoke just to hear his voice in the silence, and affirm the truth he already knew. “You’re not going to let me leave here.”

“You’re right, I don’t let people leave with company secrets.” The adventurer kept his eyes locked with his friend’s. A silence stretched between them, an eternity to Lalna’s ears. He didn’t understand what he saw there, if he was looking into the eyes of an old friend, or a new enemy. Xephos turned his face away, staring down the hallway with unfocused eyes. “Don’t make me regret letting you live.”

Lalna released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. It shifted into a light laugh, his chest rising and falling quickly as if he’d survived a marathon. He had, hadn’t he? The marathon of being a Yoglabs scientist, maybe the only survivor there wouldd ever be. His fingers slid down the cold walls, and his body fell backwards, leaning against the metal back of the container. Half lidded eyes stared out into the world, watching as his “friend” turned and walked away. He’d survived, by the skin of his teeth, like he always did. But this time, the victory was distinctly hollow. This was not just another one of his stories of amazing luck and coincidence. He was spared only by the lingering shred of compassion in an old friend, alive only at the sacrifice of what he cared about. He’d faced death many times before, but never had he’d stared it straight in the face. Lalna wished he could have found comfort in the fact that Xephos was taking a risking by letting him leave, but all he could feel was the cold of the cloning capsule, sinking into his bones. Rising tears began to blur his vision, and he closed his eyes, laying his head back and waiting for the cloning process to begin.


End file.
